BioWare's Casey Hudson tweets that development of Mass Effect 3 is complete: "After an awesome effort by our team, I'm proud to announce #MassEffect3 is officially GOLD! Many surprises await you - this week and beyond." (thanks VG247). This Mass Effect tweet offers a reminder that a demo of the action/RPG sequel is expected tomorrow: "That is correct. The demo will be released for Xbox 360, PC, and PS3 on Feb. 14th! :)." Videogamer notes early access to the Xbox 360 edition of the demo is available through Facebook.

It also has auto-patching, though it's an all or nothing feature in Origin, whereas in Steam you can select whether to auto-update on a per-game basis.

I should have said working auto-patching. On a big update, it took me 4 tries and a full afternoon and evening, and much aggravation, to get it to download and install correctly. Assuming that has been fixed since, on that and the offline mode I stand corrected.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” - Mahatma Gandhi

Yeah that's the damnest thing. What I find funnier is when hard copies can be bought for $3-4 or sometime $10 less than digital. I've seen it more than once at Walmart, Futureshop and Bestbuy up here in Canadaland.

--"For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution; and it is always wrong." --H.L. Mencken

Dades wrote on Feb 13, 2012, 22:25:That was fixed last version Creston, it no longer auto-updates when you have it turned off and it doesn't switch back.

It still auto-updates for me. The only thing that turning it off does is prevent it from updating before I've run the game, so at least it's not rushing to suck from the bandwidth spigot, but once I run the game it insists on patching. I was playing Steel Storm, for what that's worth, which I guess has a multiplayer mode but I was only trying to play the singleplayer.

It does remember the setting, though. I do see that on the Steam patch notes, but nothing about the first issue.

Flawless auto-resume on game downloads that actually worksAuto-patching feature (with the option to disable it if you prefer older builds).Easy as pie game installation from archives again that actually worksNotification of which friend is playing which game with one-click join functionality.A working (finally) offline mode.Easy and robust gifting and trading features.

Unless something has changed since I tried it, Origin offered none of these.

Origin does have an offline mode, it's one of the options in it's menu (gear icon). It also has auto-patching, though it's an all or nothing feature in Origin, whereas in Steam you can select whether to auto-update on a per-game basis.

Prez wrote on Feb 13, 2012, 19:28:Auto-patching feature (with the option to disable it if you prefer older builds).

I know the beta 1.4 Skyrim patch at least let you not update to the beta, but I was under the impression that it's otherwise as draconian as ever, and that telling it not to auto-update automatically only prevents background updating -- it still updates when you run the game, and the only way to avoid it is offline mode. Was this changed? I don't see it on the Steam notes.

Yeah, it's still the same. Bethesda managed to get an exception of some kind, but for every other game it's "patch as soon as you run it."

Not only that, but the "do no auto-update" thing gets reset every time you start Steam. They REALLY want you to patch up.

Steam is still a billion times better than Origin. I wonder how many people EA will make redownload nearly all of ME3 because Origin is uber-ultra shitty with resuming downloads.

Prez wrote on Feb 13, 2012, 19:28:Auto-patching feature (with the option to disable it if you prefer older builds).

I know the beta 1.4 Skyrim patch at least let you not update to the beta, but I was under the impression that it's otherwise as draconian as ever, and that telling it not to auto-update automatically only prevents background updating -- it still updates when you run the game, and the only way to avoid it is offline mode. Was this changed? I don't see it on the Steam notes.

To be honest, the only time I tried it was with Stalked SoC, when there was a patch that broke the game. I was able to play the game with a previous build while the mess got sorted out (I also like that you can archive an older build and reinstall it). I haven't tried it with multiplayer games, but I imagine it does work the way you say for them, which I agree is the gamer's choice to make, not Valve's.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” - Mahatma Gandhi

Prez wrote on Feb 13, 2012, 19:28:Auto-patching feature (with the option to disable it if you prefer older builds).

I know the beta 1.4 Skyrim patch at least let you not update to the beta, but I was under the impression that it's otherwise as draconian as ever, and that telling it not to auto-update automatically only prevents background updating -- it still updates when you run the game, and the only way to avoid it is offline mode. Was this changed? I don't see it on the Steam notes.

Flawless auto-resume on game downloads that actually worksAuto-patching feature (with the option to disable it if you prefer older builds).Easy as pie game installation from archives again that actually worksNotification of which friend is playing which game with one-click join functionality.A working (finally) offline mode.Easy and robust gifting and trading features.

Unless something has changed since I tried it, Origin offered none of these.

This comment was edited on Feb 13, 2012, 19:34.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” - Mahatma Gandhi

The pickle wrote on Feb 13, 2012, 16:00:People who say they don't want or use origins crack me up. It's the same thing as steam.

You crack me up because no it's not, Steam has actual functionality that people like in addition to just being a videogame library.

Agreed. Even if EA makes Origin as good as Steam one day, (and considering that this is the infamous EA we're talking about, that is a BIG if...), it still is EA, which means it is run by a company that is nowhere near as decent, trustworthy, and pro-PC as Valve, which is enough reason itself to stay away.

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” - Mahatma Gandhi

Full game integration, indie dev releases, game updates pushed by their service, a WORKING and good friends list/chat functionality, built in web browser in game (I do use it, and it works well), game gifting (to an extent, it's getting better), a way to remove games from your list easily, ability to use it as a launcher for non-Steam games (which will allow integration into said game).

List can go on as well.

Now of course many of those things are easily added. But seeing as how long Origin has been out, and EA still labels it as "Beta" software...